We've been following Hollow Home, a game about the Russian siege of a Ukrainian city, the prototype of which was Mariupol, since its announcement a year and a half ago. It's time to talk to the developers themselves. Valeriy Minenko, the founder of the Kyiv-based Twigames studio working on the game, answers the questions of Mezha.
Oleg Danylov: Good afternoon, Valerii. Tell us about yourself first, where did you study, how did you get into the gaming industry, and how did Twigames start?
Valerii Minenko: Good afternoon. I have a technical degree from the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute and later studied management at the UCU Business School.
When I was in my last year at Polytechnic, I was looking for my first job as a programmer. I was invited to a small startup to program in Unity. At that time, it was still a rather unpopular technology. That's how I got into game development.
A couple of years later, I quit my job and started freelancing. And I seemed to be doing pretty well. My clients started asking if I could find more developers or artists for their projects. At some point, I hired another full-time developer and had an artist who worked with us consistently on a part-time basis. I decided that this was enough to be considered a company. I bought a domain and made a landing page. That's how Twigames was born in 2015.
Oleg Danylov: As I understand it, until 2023, Twigames was exclusively an outsourcing studio that offered game development services, primarily mobile games, concept art, UI, etc. Why did you decide to create your own game? Is it an evolutionary development, or was the impetus given by the outbreak of a full-scale war?
Valerii Minenko: Twigames has always made its projects in parallel with outsourcing. At the time of our founding, we already had one game. It was a mobile puzzle game about pirates called Shipwrecked Shambles. Another thing is that the income generated by their projects was insignificant compared to what we received for development services.
We were indeed more focused on mobile games for many years. But recently this has changed. Now we have games that we made for PC, for all current consoles, and for VR/AR devices. Therefore, the result of our evolution is that Hollow Home is a relatively large premium project for PC and consoles, rather than, for example, a mobile game.
Oleg Danylov: How many people are currently working at Twigames, how many of them are involved in the development of Hollow Home, and how many continue to work on outsourced projects?
Valerii Minenko: We currently have 20 people in our team. The number of specialists working on Hollow Home may vary slightly from time to time, but on average it is about 4 people.
Oleg Danylov: Have you found funding for Hollow Home or are you creating the game on your own? You didn't launch a Kickstarter for the game, didn't see the need for it? Tell us about your publisher, Polish Galaktus, as if games were not their main focus?
Valerii Minenko: Currently, the project has no external funding. We continue to invest our own funds in its development. And yes, a Kickstarter campaign is one of the opportunities we are considering for ourselves in the future.
Galaktus is a Polish company that provides PR and marketing services. We met them a year ago at Gamescom. By the way, if I can do it, I would like to thank the organizers of the Ukrainian stand at Gamescom - Oleksandr Khrutskyi from Games Gathering, Elena Lobova from GDBay, and the rest of the team. I believe that they are doing a great and important job that doesn't get enough attention.
Coming back to Galaktus, they work with a lot of game projects. They provide us with some services related to marketing, PR, and community management for a portion of future sales. They also have their own booths at several major events, such as PAX or Gamescom, and showcase our game there.
Oleg Danylov: Hollow Home is a difficult project, difficult from a moral point of view, it tells about the first days of a full-scale invasion and is difficult to play psychologically. Are you sure that such fresh and not the most pleasant memories will attract Ukrainian players? Will they attract foreigners who are already "tired" of the war in Ukraine?
Valerii Minenko: This is a really difficult and painful topic. And it is very difficult for us to work with it ourselves. When we started working on the project in the spring of 2022, all we wanted to do was shout about our war as loudly as possible. At the time, there was a popular belief that the world simply did not understand what was happening here, and if it was explained well, it would wake up and stop the war. We definitely didn't think that the topic of our war should attract anyone.
I still don't think so. Obviously, the vast majority of people, including me, would like to forget about all this horror and go on with their lives. But we cannot afford to do so. And even more so, we cannot afford to let the world forget about our war, to be left alone with a great enemy. We don't want to attract players with memories. We want to make the project so good that it will make them remember a war they would rather forget.
Last year, the movie 20 Days in Mariupol was released in Ukraine. We went to see it as a team. It was mandatory for everyone working on the project. I remember sitting in the theater, I had a very strange feeling. It was like I had seen all the footage I was seeing a year ago on the news. As if it was nothing new. But the memories had been gathering dust for a year, and had become so distant. And then they came back again, along with the emotions of the spring of 2022-fear, despair, and, most importantly, anger. It's very sobering, really. It is a good reminder of the world we live in, what we do and why. At the time, I also thought that I should force myself to review it at least once a year.
Oleg Danylov:We understand that this war needs to be told, including to Western audiences, at least to interrupt Russian narratives. But isn't it too early? Doesn't it hurt too much?
Valerii Minenko: I think one of the main words of this war is "too late". So much of it was done too late. We started preparing for it too late, and the Western world is always reacting to it too late.
Perhaps our project is a little too late. Because the importance of our war for the world is decreasing, and it is still unfortunately not ready.
Oleg Danylov: Immediately after the announcement, some people on the web even seemed to accuse you of "parasitizing on the topic of the war in Ukraine" and that such games were unethical and out of date. How much did this demotivate the team and what did you say to the haters?
Valerii Minenko: Immediately after the announcement, we received a lot of support from the Ukrainian community and our colleagues. I think I've already mentioned somewhere that 9 people wrote me an e-mail and offered to help me create the project. Half of them were from Mariupol. Several sent us their diaries that they kept during the occupation. Others simply offered to help us in some way, to do something for the project. Our composer Danylo is one of those people. And we still get a lot of support from different people and companies, including from abroad. The whole time I've been working on Hollow Home, I've been facing doubts on a regular basis. The game eats up a lot of both my own and the company's resources. And every time I get some kind of support that helps me continue.
It is impossible to make a project with any social message so that it is immediately understood and accepted by everyone. In the public space, it is difficult to do anything without being judged. I try to be open in my communications, to listen and hear everything that is said to us, and to respond to it. But the most important thing, I think, is to understand what you are doing and why. I have answers to these questions for myself. I hope the team working on Hollow Home does too.
Oleg Danylov: The protagonist of Hollow Home is a teenage boy who is left in a city surrounded by Russians and has to survive on his own and help the people around him. In other words, it's a game about a child who faces very childish problems. How openly are you going to show the horrors of war? Russian shootings of civilians, mass graves, torture, rape... is it even worth showing this in the game?
Valerii Minenko: There is no violence on the screen in Hollow Home. We show the consequences of the war, how it changes the lives of ordinary people, but we do not show the tragic events themselves. Nothing from your list is in our project.
Oleg Danylov: As I understand it, when creating Hollow Home, you were inspired by This War of Mine and Disco Elysium, were there any other sources of inspiration, besides the events of the war that inspired the game's development?
Valerii Minenko: Yes, Disco Elysium is probably our main reference. In terms of gameplay, visual style, and audience. This War of Mine is the best reference for a game about war and how you can talk about it. We look at some of their solutions, although obviously our projects are very different. I would also add Valiant Hearts to this list. In terms of visual style, I can also mention The Long Dark game, the Arcane animated series, and the latest Spider-Man cartoons, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
Oleg Danylov: What engine does Hollow Home use and why did you choose it?
Valerii Minenko: We are currently working with Unity. We chose it because we have the most expertise in it.
Oleg Danylov: Hollow Home has a very interesting visual style. As far as I know, you use AI in development, is it about graphics or something else? What tools do you use?
Valerii Minenko: Thank you. Our lead artist will be very happy to hear that. She's put a lot of herself into what the project looks like now, and she's continuing to change and improve the visuals.
We don't use AI in any format in this project. Everything here is handmade - code, models, hand-painted textures.
Oleg Danylov: Hollow Home won in two categories at Indie Cup Ukraine'23 and is now in the final of Indie Cup Europe'24. Do such competitions help in game development and promotion?
Valerii Minenko: Competitions are quite important for indie developers in general and for us in particular. Winning a contest means recognition and support from your colleagues. Before your game gets to the store and someone starts playing it, it's hard for you to assess how good it is. You don't even realize it yourself during development. And contests are one of the things that help keep you believing and motivated.
Also, sometimes winning a contest brings some useful things. For example, winning Games Gathering gave us some free localization for the game. We also recently won a pitch battle at the Nordic Game conference in Sweden, and we have something to show for it. In a situation where you are limited in resources on all sides, it is very pleasant.
Oleg Danylov: If it's not a secret, how many people have already added Hollow Home to their Wish List (my guess is about 15 thousand), what level of sales do you expect and... are you ready for failure?
Valerii Minenko: Your evaluation of wishlists is pretty close to the truth. To be honest, I don't know how you can be ready or not ready for failure. Right now, this project has the maximum of what we can and can do - all our experience, expertise, creativity, and all our pain and anger. Our main focus is to make the best project within our capabilities. All my thoughts are about that.
Oleg Danylov: Currently, the release date of Hollow Home is 2025. Is it the beginning or the end? At what stage is the project currently in development and what other stages does the game have to go through before release?
Valerii Minenko: The project is in the process of active development and search for a publisher. We are currently participating in various events, trying to show the game to as large an audience as possible.
As for the planned release date and expected sales, I can't tell you anything at the moment.
Oleg Danylov: Thank you for your answers, Valerii. We wish you inspiration in completing the game and good sales. We wish all of us victory and liberation of the temporarily occupied territories.
Valerii Minenko: Thank you!
